Here's a useful chart borrowed from http://www-personal.umich.edu/~lpt/pwrpnt/DrySuit.pdf
Question Drysuit temperature and time limits in 13C and 24C water
- Thread starter Underwater Tourist
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Wet v. Dry and longer dives in coldish conditions...
With decent underclothes, drysuit, dry gloves, thick hood and heating you can definitely do more than a couple of hours. It's almost pleasant and no great challenge
Without the heating it can get chilly on the 6m/20ft stop with a lot of shivering. It becomes an endurance.
Diving in a wetsuit just isn't feasible for longer dives, hypothermia is life threatening. Struggle to think that people used to do long dives in a wetsuit.
Maybe we're going through technological evolution. Rebreathers make deep diving feasible with long runtimes and are far more comfortable than open circuit with warmer moist breathing gas. Good undersuits and heating maintains your core temperature way beyond previous technologies which means you're safer.
Now we can do longer bottom times at deeper depths, or longer penetrations.
I've dived for years with a heated vest and layers. Have a bunch of dives booked up this year that are the same as last year; Scotland and Malin Head (NW Ireland). These will be between 7C and 12C and are down to 70m/230ft, so want to maximise bottom time.
Learning what I did from last year, I've invested in a heated BZ400 undersuit which I've been testing in the comparatively warm 10C English Channel on 2h dives. From what I've found on these dives, I can honestly report that I'm looking forwards to these deep, cold and long dives. I do like the heating extending to the arms and legs, compared with the heated vest.
Have also seen what it's like when the heating failed. Colder yes, but not dangerously so.
With decent underclothes, drysuit, dry gloves, thick hood and heating you can definitely do more than a couple of hours. It's almost pleasant and no great challenge
Without the heating it can get chilly on the 6m/20ft stop with a lot of shivering. It becomes an endurance.
Diving in a wetsuit just isn't feasible for longer dives, hypothermia is life threatening. Struggle to think that people used to do long dives in a wetsuit.
Maybe we're going through technological evolution. Rebreathers make deep diving feasible with long runtimes and are far more comfortable than open circuit with warmer moist breathing gas. Good undersuits and heating maintains your core temperature way beyond previous technologies which means you're safer.
Now we can do longer bottom times at deeper depths, or longer penetrations.
I've dived for years with a heated vest and layers. Have a bunch of dives booked up this year that are the same as last year; Scotland and Malin Head (NW Ireland). These will be between 7C and 12C and are down to 70m/230ft, so want to maximise bottom time.
Learning what I did from last year, I've invested in a heated BZ400 undersuit which I've been testing in the comparatively warm 10C English Channel on 2h dives. From what I've found on these dives, I can honestly report that I'm looking forwards to these deep, cold and long dives. I do like the heating extending to the arms and legs, compared with the heated vest.
Have also seen what it's like when the heating failed. Colder yes, but not dangerously so.
It's my understanding that if using heated garments, it' better to use them for the return/ascent part of the dive. The thinking is that it's better to be cooler during the on-gassing part of the dive, and therefore absorb slightly less nitrogen. On the ascent, it's better to be warmer, thus accelerating the off-gassing. Also, if the heating fails early in a dive where the heat is required for the entire dive, it could be an issue, compared to a failure when you are already on the way up.
13C isn't terribly cold for a drysuit diver. 16C is nearly a skin dive temperature (I've done it).
How long are the dives you plan to do? One hour? Two hours? Three hours?
You want to avoid the thicker undergarments.
In high flow this might be reasonable.
In still waters, less so.
Your cross section might grow slower than the warmth.
How long are the dives you plan to do? One hour? Two hours? Three hours?
You want to avoid the thicker undergarments.
In high flow this might be reasonable.
In still waters, less so.
Your cross section might grow slower than the warmth.
OP
Underwater Tourist
Contributor
I quick google search didnt show any other manufacturers with a full (body+limbs) heated suit.
Are there alternatives I missed?
Pretty big range. Usually people talk about the tourist caves in the Lot region . Those are 11-13-ish. But you also have warmer cave in the south and colder ones in the north. So from around 20 or over to below 8.
grantctobin is talking about normal bz400 suits. The bz400 referes to the amount and type of thinsulate filling. All kinds of brands have bz400 suits. The Rofos one is only about half as expensive as Santi. Would not make any sense for you to buy a heated suit to dive in those temps for now.
BTW: Longer dives in the Lot are either multi sump dives or get pretty deep for the most part. It's not at all like in Mexico, where you can just swim or scooter for hours in shallow water and good viz. Even in the tourists caves, long dives aren't as easy as in Mexico.
Kwark Navy are great undersuits. Not heated though.
Kwark Navy undergarment?
I've searched (SB and the Google). I've found a couple of posts about Kwark Navy undersuits. Can anybody share any more thoughts on them than the 1 or 2 posts I have found so far? I am currently diving a Fourth Element Arctic 2 piece under my shell suit. I am interested in getting a 1 piece...
OP
Underwater Tourist
Contributor
@berndo yeah i know that the bz400g refers to the filling, I was more asking about the heating feature of the bz400 that has heating throughout the whole suit as opposed just the vest. So I was asking if there are other manufacturers that make undergarments that are heated beyond the chest area.
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